Ch 12 · Lesson 16Esperanto · Chapter 12 · Lesson 16 · Grammar primer
Esperanto slang: mojosa, -aĉ- and krokodili
is cool, o is a cur, and is slipping into your own language at an Esperanto event: the words the community uses on itself.
The short version
!
Why?Hide
is cool in the sense of great, never cold. It was coined in November 2003 at a youth seminar in Hungary from the initials of , and : MJS, read as , plus the adjective -a. It is not in PIV, but younger speakers use it everywhere, usually boosted with .
Add -aĉ- to make anything rotten
!
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The suffix -aĉ- turns almost any root contemptuous. is a dog, o a cur; is a house, o a hovel; is to sing, kantaĉi to sing badly. On its own it is an adjective, , lousy. It is the most productive insult in the language, and every speaker understands a new one at once.
The word for lapsing out of Esperanto:
krokodilu!
Why?Hide
At any Esperanto gathering, slipping into your own national language instead of Esperanto is called , and it is the community's own running joke about itself. Knowing the word - and that it gets called out with a laugh, not a lecture - means you get the joke instead of just parsing the sentence next time you see it in a group chat.
slang is the layer of words speakers use about themselves. is cool, is slipping into your own language, kabei is quitting for good. None is in a phrasebook, and all of them are in the group chat.
| Word | Means | From |
|---|---|---|
| cool, great | initials, 2003 |
| a cur | --, rotten |
| to speak your own language | |
kabei | to quit the movement for good | , 1911 |
| the world | --, a land |
finvenkisto | believer in the final victory | |
mojosa: cool
means cool in the sense of great, not cold. It is built from initials: moderna, na, stila (modern, young, stylish), MJS, padded with vowels and given the adjective -a. It was coined in November 2003 at a youth seminar in Söjtör, Hungary.
It takes every adjective ending, and - and -e work on it as on any adjective:
| Form | English |
|---|---|
| cool |
| cool (plural) |
a | uncool |
| coolly, in style |
!- The new song is seriously cool!
, from the suffix --, is the usual booster. The word is not in PIV, the big reference dictionary, and an older speaker may not know it: that is how slang travels.
- aĉa
- bona
- mojosa
- ege mojosa
-aĉ-: rotten, and sal for hello
The suffix -- makes anything rotten. It works on almost any root, which makes it the most useful insult in the language:
| Plain | With -- | English |
|---|---|---|
| | a cur |
| | a hovel |
| | foul weather |
| kantaĉi | to sing badly |
On its own it is an adjective: , lousy. ! - What a rotten day!
At the friendly end, is the casual short form of , hello, common in chat and among friends. Keep for anyone you do not know.
krokodili and the reptile family
Put twenty Esperantists in a room and some will share a national language. Speaking it there is , to crocodile: a crocodile, , turned into a verb.
a crocodile
krokodilu!-t crocodile! (Speak Esperanto!)
It is called out with a laugh, usually by someone who was doing it an hour earlier. Where the word comes from is not settled: several stories are told with confidence, and none is proven.
The community has built a joke family on it, sorted by whose language you are speaking. Definitions vary from speaker to speaker; these are the common ones:
| Verb | You speak |
|---|---|
| your own language |
aligatori | a language native to others, not to you |
kajmani | a language native to nobody present |
gaviali | , where another language would serve |
- krokodili
- aligatori
- kajmani
is the one everyone knows; the rest are mostly jokes.
Going further: kabei: the man who became a verb and the rest of the guide, when you want them. This lesson does not need them.
Practice
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